the northern border of the Kalahari Desert, and is fed chiefly by the OkavangoTioge River from the north-west, which, in the rainy season, brings down such a flood of water that it overflows by the Botletle or Zouga channel to the great salt-pans on the east. CLIMATE: Africa is the hottest division of the globe. This is readily accounted for, as more than three-fourths of its extent fall within the Torrid Zone, and these portions of the continent exhibit a broad and unbroken mass of land, upon which the rays of a vertical sun act with intense power. The vast expanse of the Great Desert or the Sahara, in particular, reflects an excessive amount of heat from its arid and waterless surface. The whole of this region forms a great natural furnace, the heated atmosphere generated in which is carried by the winds over distant lands and seas, gradually losing its heat under the influence of the larger bodies of water. The climate of tropical Africa is for the most part dry, but a vast quantity of rain falls at particular periods of the year. The dry and rainy seasons succeed one another with perfect regularity, and they are the only seasons by which the climate of Africa, within the Tropics, is distinguished. In the desert, rain very seldom occurs, only at intervals of several years, and intense aridity is its prevalling characteristic. But the plains of Central Africa, to the south of the desert, and also the low districts of the eastern and western coasts, have regular and abundant rains of annual recurrence. The extreme portions of the African continent, both in the direction of north and south, fall within the Temperate Zones. The plains and valleys of the Atlas region in the north have a climate which resembles, in all essential respects, that experienced on the opposite shores of the Mediterranean. The Cape Colony, at the other extremity of the continent, is somewhat cooler, and is less abundantly supplied with rain. The climate of tropical Africa is unhealthy to Europeans, from its intense heat, and still more from the prevalence, within the coast regions, of noxious exhalations (the result of a burning sun acting upon a dense mass of vegetation, such as occurs at the mouths of the rivers and creeks), which generate fevers. Where any considerable elevation above the sea can be reached, these unhealthy influences disappear. PRODUCTIONS: The natural productions of Africa are almost as rich and even more varied than those of any other continent. The vegetation includes a large number of peculiar plants, while animals, especially hoofed animals, pachyderms, and carnivora, are more numerous than in any other part of the world. Except in the south, where diamonds, gold, and copper are plentiful, the mineral resources of Africa do not seem to be exceptionally great. PLANTS: A vast number of the plants native to the African continent differ in all respects from those that belong to the other divisions of the globe. It is to the south of the Sahara that the distinguishing characteristics of African botany are observed. The vegetation which is native to Northern Africa resembles that of the opposite shores of the Mediterranean. The rich fruits of southern Europe all grow to perfection in the watered valleys of the Atlas Mountains. The fig. almond, orange, lemon, vine, mulberry, and peach thrive there, and the moun tain-sides are clothed with the luxuriant evergreen foliage of southern lands. The plains that adjoin the southern base of the Atlas are the region of the date-palm. To this succeeds the desert, with its scanty covering of thorny shrubs and grasses-diversified by the occasional growth of palms, which distinguish every oasis in the wilderness. The desert is a vast natural barrier to the passage of the various forms of life-vegetable and animal alike--that be long to the regions by which it is limited upon either side, and the trees and plants of Central Africa are entirely distinct from those that belong to the shores of the Mediterranean. The forests of Central Africa, especially the great forest-region recently dis covered by Stanley, between the Congo and the Great Lakes,' include trees of vast size, most of them of species unknown in Europe. Among them are many which furnish timber of valuable quality, distinguished by the closeness of its texture and the beauty of its grain. Some of the native plants yield artic.es of food, several of which are unknown in other lands. The date-palm, "the bread of the desert" and the staple food for man and beast, grows abundantly in the Sahara and adjoining region. The shea, or butter tree, is so called from a kind of butter which is derived from the kernel of its nut. The baobab, or monkey-bread, is one of the most valuable boons conferred by nature upon the Negro inhabitants of the regions watered by the Senegal and the Gambia. The oil-palm is another of the valuable produc tions of the western coasts, and the sago-palm thrives on the eastern coast belt. The manioc, which yields a most nutritious food (cassava and tapioca) is extensively grown in tropical Africa, especially along the Guinea coast and in the Congo region. The palm-oil of commerce, now extensively used in our own country, is expressed from the nut of the oil-palm. The yam, ground-nut, and other esculent roots and highly nutritious fruits, such as the banana, are likewise among the native productions of the African soil within the Tropics. The cottonplant grows wild, as also do the sugar-cane and the indigo-plant, though they have not been generally turned to much account by the native population. The highlands lying to the south of Abyssinia are the native region of the coffee 1. Stanley, in his address to the Royal Geo-shire, the gardens of Kent, and the glorious vales graphical Society in the Albert Hall, London, on of this island. Nyassaland is not Africa, but it elf, his return from his famous expedition, said:- and only a small section of a great continent which "Our late journey for the relief and rescue of embraces over 11,000,000 of square miles Emin, the Governor of Equatoria, was over 6,000 miles in length and occupied us 987 days. Five hundred of those days were passed in the great Central African forest, and for 487 days we lived or journeyed through grass lands. Let us talk of the forest first. and I promise not to mislead you. South Manyuema, to Bagbomo, on the Welle Its greatest length is from near Kabambarré, in Makua, in west Niam-Niam, 621 English miks; its A writer on Africa 'ately wrote a book, wherein square area of 321,057 square miles. A serpentine average breadth is 517 miles, which makes a compat he said:"Day after day you may wander through line through the centre of this would represen our these forests with nothing except the climate to course. remind you where you are. ... The fairy labyrinth trees varying from 20 ft. to 2001. high, so close that This enormous tract is crammed with of ferns and palm, the festoons of climbing plants the branches interlace one another and for al blocking the paths and scenting the forests with umbrageous canopy. their resplendent flowers, the gorgeous clouds of to sunshine. While the sun scorches and dazzles It is absolutely impenet.be insects, the gaily-plumaged birds, the paraquets, without, a little dust of white light flickering here the monkey swinging froin his trapeze in the shad- and there only reveals the fact. "Generally it was a ed bowers-these are unknown to Africa. a week you will see a palm; once in three months page of a book became unreadable; at night one Once mystical twilight, but on misty or rainy days the the monkey will cross your path; the flowers fancied that the darkness was palpable and 9011. on the whole are few, the trees are poor, and, The moon and stars were of no avail to us. As to be honest-nay, if this is honest description, there are about 150 days rain throughout the year, I must close right here. We have travelled 1.670 and almost every rainfall, except a drizzle, is pre miles through the great forest of Equatorial Africa, ceded by squalls, storms, tempests, or tortadors and we are compelled to declare that the writer's with the most startling thunder crashes and the description of Africa is altogether wrong, that it most vivid flashes of lightning, you may nag ne bears no more resemblance to tropical Africa that the houseless traveller in such a region mast than the tors of Devon resemble leafy Warwick- endure much discomfort." tree, but the plant is now largely cultivated in Liberia, on the west coast. Rice, maize, and wheat are very largely grown in Egypt and the Barbary countries, and maize and wheat are the chief cereals in Southern Africa, where maize (or "mealies") forms the staple food of the natives. The extreme south of the African continent, again, constitutes a third region of vegetable life, distinct from those of the north and the centre. The country to the south of the Orange River is the native seat of such plants as the aloes and the heaths. A vast variety of plants with thick, fleshy leaves, and thin wiry roots capable of thriving in a comparatively arid soil, such as belongs to the plains of that region-abounds in the neighbourhood of the Cape of Good Hope. Some of the choicest ornaments of our greenhouses-the geranium, for example-have been originally derived thence. ANIMALS: Africa abounds more than any other of the continents in variety of animal life, and in the vast number of its mammalia; that is to say, it contains a greater number of native species (many of them peculiar to it) and exhibits also an immense numerical development of many among these species. This is especially the case in the interior plains of Southern Africa, which literally swarm with abundance of animal life. The regions which are marked out as the seats of distinct forms of vegetable life in the African continent are characterised by cognate differences in the animal world, though the line of division is perhaps less definite. The influence of the vast desert is, however, strikingly noticeable. The lion of Northern Africa is of a different species from that native to the southerly division of the continent. The striped hyena, which is common to North Africa with the neighbouring countries of Western Asia, is not found to the south of the desert, where the spotted hyena takes its place. The giraffe or camelopard-an animal peculiar to the African division of the globe-is native to the whole interior of Southern Africa, but is not found either to the north of the desert or within its limits. The zebra, and other animals of the same family, are peculiar to Southern Africa; so also are the elands, and several other large members of the antelope kind. Among the quadrupeds which are peculiar to Africa may be mentioned the hippopotamus and the rhinoceros. The former, which frequents the marshy banks of rivers and inland lakes, is found from the upper part of the Nile valley southward to the Orange River, and westward to the shores of the Atlantic Ocean; the rhinoceros is native to the plains of Central and Southern Africa. The African elephant belongs to the same wide-spread region, limited on the north by the impassable barrier of the desert. This latter tract would be almost as impassable to man as it is to the lower animals, were it not for the camel, which fills, in the northern half of the African continent, the same place that it does in the arid wildernesses of Western Asia. The quadrumanous order of animals-monkeys, baboons, &c.—is numerously developed in Africa, and its various members are found through nearly the whole extent of the continent, and from the Atlas Mountains to the forests of Cape Colony. Only in the desert, again, are they absent. The forests of the western coasts, within the Tropics, give shelter to the species of apes which makes nearest approach to the human form. The chimpanzee of Senegambia is surpassed in this respect by the gorilla of the Gabun River,' within the woods adjoining which it was seen for the first time by Europeans. The Gabun River enters the eastern extremity of the Gulf of Guinea, a short distance to the north of the Equitor. Among birds, the ostrich is peculiar to Africa. In the Cape Colony and the Orange Free State this "giraffe among birds" is domesticated and reared like sheep or cattle. The guinea-fowl is the only member of the gallinaceous tribe native to this continent. The sun-birds of the western coast, and the honeysuckers of the Cape of Good Hope, are distinguished by their smallness of size as well as by the brilliancy of their plumage. The crocodile of the Nile valley is one of the characteristic members of African zoology in the reptile division of the animal kingdom. It belongs to other rivers within tropical Africa, as well as the Nile. Serpents, lizards, and other reptiles are sufficiently numerous in the marshy regions of the coasts, but are less common in Africa than in some other divisions of the globe. Of noxious insects, the tsetse fly and the white ant are perfect pests in South Central Africa, where large areas are almost covered with ant-hills, and as for the tsetse fly, which infests the low plains between the Zambesi and the Limpopo, it is "an insect resembling and scarcely larger than our common house-fly, and its bite is fatal to horses and sometimes to cattle, though it is perfectly harmless to man or to wild animals." MINERALS: Little is known concerning the mineralogy of Africa, except in the south and the extreme north, and along various parts of the coast. The Atlas region has been found to include a rich variety of ores, among them iron, copper, lead, and other metals; and at the opposite extremity of the continent, the diamond fields and copper mines of the Cape Colony, and the gold fields of the Transvaal and Mashonaland, are extremely rich. Gold-dust, derived from the beds of numerous rivers within tropical Africa, has been in all ages an article of export from this portion of the globe. Both the eastern and western consts furnish gold, and a part of Guinea is especially distinguished as the "Gold Coast," the gold-fields of which are being developed, especially around Tarkwa, but the precious metal is now obtained chiefly from the rich gold-fields of the Transvaal and Mashonaland. In the Transvaal the Witwatersrand Gold-field, with JOHANNESBURG for its centre, and the De Kaap Gold-field around BARBERTON, with smaller gold areas at Heidelberg, Zoutspansberg, and in Swaziland, are energetically worked, principally by British mining companies. The Gold-fields of Mashonaland are also being actively opened up. The Diamond Fields of South Africa are the richest in the world, the "Four Mines" in Griqualand West--the Kimberley, De Beer, Dutoitspan and Bultfontein Mines-have already yielded diamonds to the value of about 85 millions sterling. There are also productive diamond mines in the Orange River Colony, and from the "River Diggings" along the Vaal some of the finest gems have been obtained. But as the country becomes more settled, the diamonds and gold may become of less real value than the iron and coal which is found in both the Cape Colony and Natal. INHABITANTS: Africa is the native home of the Negro race, to which the great bulk of the inhabitants belong. But in this, as in all other respects, the desert constitutes a region of division. The inhabitants of Northern Africa are Berbers, Moors, and Arabs-people of 1. The population of Africa is roughly estimated at 200 millions, i... only about 16 inhabitants to the square mile. In a paper read, in go, before the British Association, the population of Africa was estimated at 127,000,000, giving a density of 11 to the square mile. swarthy complexion, but perfectly distinct from the Negro type. The wandering inhabitants of the desert belong also to the Arab stock. It is not until the southern limit of the Sahara is passed that Negro Africa begins. This is the region known in African geography as the Sudan-i.e., the land of the blacks, or Negroland. The dark skin, thick lips, and woolly hair of the Negro are among the distinguishing features of that race. But there are numerous points of difference between the various negro nations, as there are between the various nations of the European and Asiatic continents. The inhabitants of the Nile valley, in the present day, are chiefly of Arab race, excepting in its upper part, where they are mixed with native African nations. Negro Africa includes the greater part of Africa within the Tropics. The southern part of the continent, like the extreme north, is peopled by other varieties of the human family. The Bantu races include the Kaffirs of Cape Colony and Natal, the Basutos, Bechuanas, Matabeles, Zulus, Swazis, &c., as well as the Waganda, Wanyoro, and other peoples of East Central Africa, all of whom differ considerably from, and are nobler specimens of humanity than, the true Negro. The Hottentots, who call themselves Khoi-Khoïn (men of men), Gui-Khoin (first men), and Ava-Khoïn (red men), and who once ruled over all temperate South Africa, are now found only in the south-west. Still more primitive and puny races are the Bushmen of the Kalahari Desert, the Akkhas of the Welle-Makua district in the Congo State, and the Pygmies of the great Aruwimi forest, recently discovered by Stanley. Religion: The bulk of the natives in Central and Southern Africa are pagans, making a "fetish" or god of any object. Mohammedanism prevails throughout Northern Africa, and is at the present day being actively propagated in the Sudan. Christianity is professed not only by the European colonists of Algeria and Southern Africa, but also by the Copts of Egypt and, in a corrupted form, by the Abyssinians. INDUSTRY and TRADE: Africa is the least important of all the continents with regard to external commerce, while the indigenous industries are limited to the production of the barest necessaries of life, or to the mere collection of the raw materials bartered or exchanged for European manufactures. "This is due partly to natural unproductiveness, which does not favour density of population over any large area; partly to the backward state of civilization; and, in particular, to the fact that throughout a large part of the interior, population and production are kept down by misgovernment, internal wars, and above all, the slave trade; partly to the fact that in no other continent have European influences, and especially European modes of production and transport, made so little headway. But although this be true of Africa as a whole, it should be borne in mind that the same cannot be said of certain portions of the continent, the people in which are as industrious, and utilize their resources as fully, as those of most European countries. These more advanced portions of Africa are, however, limited to the extreme south and the extreme north and north-east of the continent. The people of the Cape Colony and Natal will compare favourably with those of any part of the empire, and the French colonists in Algeria and Tunis have literally 1. Chisholm-Handbook of Commercial Geography. |